


Stockholm Syndrome

by Bronte



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bronte/pseuds/Bronte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John dreams of PG Tips and a kip, of Assam and slippers, and he’s nodding off on his feet before he knows it, unbeknownst to no one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stockholm Syndrome

He pulls on his gloves and does his best to stave off the December chill, caught off guard on a frigid Thursday evening in civvies better suited for July. He keeps his head down, his scarf forgotten in his haste to leave the flat, and tries in vain to think of something else.

He flexes his fingers, his toes, and lifts his palms to his lips, blowing damp air through the thin cotton. He sees Sherlock from the corner of his vision hovering over an eviscerated corpse and prays for it to be a quick one, an easy one, if only so he can crawl back into bed and nurse whatever illness he’s been harbouring since the beginning of the bloody week in peace, peace being the key word. He tries to suppress the growing frustration he’s built up during the last couple days for his nauseating, juvenile, _infuriating_ excuse of a flatmate.

He dreams of PG Tips and a kip, of Assam and slippers, and he’s nodding off on his feet before he knows it, unbeknownst to no one.

He’s being dragged into a taxi and John already knows his cold has gone from bad to worse, can feel it seeping into his bones and coating them, broiling the marrow as his fever creeps from tolerable to feeling too tight across his skull. His eyelids feel like they’ve been sealed shut with the sands of distant deserts and the memories of a soldier whose subconscious is lost in the throes of something he barely survived.

He dreams of marmalade.

He’s manhandled none too gently from the back of the vehicle and his entire world is thrown sideways, through the depths of the ocean as rain begins coming down in droves. Sherlock swears beside him as he’s shoved through the threshold and arranged onto the landing like a marionette, posture crumpled, lolled sideways, a fever pitch. Time passes before he’s hauled back onto his feet, stripped of his jacket and lugged unceremoniously up the stairs.

Sherlock hollers for their landlady in his ear and he doesn’t mind because he can hear the northern ocean against the walls of Fort George, the cries of sea birds intermingling with the cries of the women he’d have undone in the pubs of Inverness. He’s dumped onto the sofa and the change of equilibrium is a welcome adjustment to the tedium of stumbling, all stubbed toes and bruised shins after a trip up the stairs. He vaguely remembers something about the washing before he falls asleep again.

He’s being prodded out of uneasy oblivion, prodded by something cool and metallic, and in the far distance he can hear Sherlock carrying on about the futility of taking his temperature because it is abominably clear that he’s peaked at 39.7°C and is showing no signs of convalescence. The rush of water around his ears is turning into a squall as Sherlock’s voice rises in his periphery, and nudging onto his side only makes it worse.

Coming to his senses hurts more than he realises, but some familiar sting tells him to focus on the pain, take stock of your injuries major, eyes open, eyes fixed on me. He stretches his fingers, they throb, and they’re itching. He drags his glove to his lips, takes the tip of the cotton sheath between his teeth and pulls.

Leather clad fingers card through his hair, spurring him to consciousness. He vaguely feels it, the feeling accompanied by the voice of a ghost, a ghost of many memories passed, of one he remembers both fondly and as an experience he would have rather forgotten. Sherlock removes his hand just as he goes to bury his cheek into the detective’s offending palm, obtrusive and welcome in the haze of his thoughts. Because of course he’s welcome, he always has been and the realisation is as sharp as the crystal pain emanating from his brain stem.

He opens his eyes and it’s like swimming through manuka honey, a kaleidoscope of jams and jellies blurring his line of sight. Sherlock looks worried, and it’s the kind of worried he’s come to recognise as the discomfort of a man accustomed to death facing a living, breathing human being in pain. He feels like laughing, knows he hasn’t been lost in the throes of a fever since nearly bleeding out on the sands of _Lashkar Gah_ , and knows that’s what Sherlock is worrying about. Starlight dances in his field of vision as the bleary flat comes into stodgy focus, colours coagulated like petrol on asphalt. He’s helped to a sitting position and the movement is somewhat gentler this time, gloved hands supporting his throbbing head as he’s propped up with a cushion. He watches out of focus as Mrs. Hudson patters around the kitchen, griping on about the state of the cupboards as she fishes the medical supplies from the first aid kit he always keeps on the shelf. Moments later he’s being handed two paracetamol and a glass of water as if he’s expected to know what to do with them, and although the objects are familiar, he can’t be arsed to remember. He thinks of sleep and marmalade, of laundry day and Yeats, of gunshots on the walls and the heavy beat of a skull against the pavement of St. Bart’s and suddenly there’s water soaking the left leg of his trousers.

He takes the world in from behind his eyelashes, watches as Mrs. Hudson makes a fuss and Sherlock glances at his phone on the side table, the numbers nine-nine-nine playing across his features as clear as day. He refrains for the moment however, peeling off his gloves and coat in favour of rolling up his shirt sleeves. Slight marks that speak of lesser days riddle the pallid skin of his lower arms, faded scars caught in the dismal light of the low wattage. Sherlock speaks in dulcet tones and he’d be damned if he can make out the syllables above the wash and lull of the Ness on his shores.

He’s incoherent – _he must be_ – as Sherlock pushes the two pills passed his lips with the tip of his finger, beckoning him to take a sip of water and swallow. He falls back on the cushion and watches the ceiling as it undulates like heat waves on sand dunes, tasting burnt cork and old leather and formaldehyde on his tongue and lips. He hears Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock in hushed tones, one promising the other to keep an eye on him throughout the evening in case he gets any worse. There’s a miniscule voice lurking somewhere, still lucid in the confines of his addled mind, panicking at the possibility.

The world moves from underneath him and suddenly he’s on his feet, Sherlock a steady sentinel at his side. With the kind of care he wasn’t sure the detective was capable of, Sherlock heaves him up the stairs and carefully deposits him on the foot of his made bed with an expression that doesn’t quite suit his facial features. With an air of resign, Sherlock strips the perfectly tucked sheets from their folded corners and takes another wary step back, unsure as to what his next manoeuver will entail.

John smirks at his confusion and barely feels the muscle of his cheek twitch in muted response as he tries to toe off his shoes on his own accord. He manages one before slumping forwards, the pharmaceuticals, to which he has always been a bit sensitive to, finally beginning to do their job. Sherlock finishes the rest and the rest is a blur he isn’t entirely conscious of, the swell of the waves waning in a wash of anaesthetic prescription drugs. He hears the automatic firing of finger pads against touch sensitive glass, insipid artificial light filtering through the forests of his eyes, and soon Sherlock is gone only to return with a damp cloth clutched in hand. He places the offending item on his forehead like one might handle a soiled handkerchief and a smirk tries to surface again, this time succeeding the previous attempt. Sherlock forces a soft rush of breath through his nose at the sight before sitting down on the hassock near the office desk, pausing to consider his phone again.

“Sherlock.”

The detective’s eyes shoot upwards, carefully studying him from across the attic bedroom. He doesn’t know if he’s been out for minutes or hours, he can never tell when he’s like this, awash in a flurry of motion he can’t commit. Sherlock doesn’t look any worse for wear; he never does, even after he showed up as the ghost of his past like a brazen emblem of everything he had tried to hide away in the farthest reaches of his mind like a bad dream, like a memory he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to remember but couldn’t forget, not when he would awaken in a cold sweat and it was still so damn _fresh_.

“Yes?”

He fishes his hands out from underneath the cotton sheets and turns his head as it throbs in perfect timing with his heart. He licks his parched lips and tries not to think of the heavy staccato rhythm building to a crescendo against the interior of his skull.

He knows what he wants to ask but he can’t quite make his tongue form the words, heavy like a mouthful of sand, pungent like a gulp of saltwater. Sherlock’s unwavering form blurs before him, flickering out of view for a moment as his eyelashes impede his ability to see. The detective is still staring, still calculating, pinning him like a specimen to the mounting board. He lets him sink right in, lets him break the skin.

“John?”

His mind wanders as his vision begins to bleed into darkness. He resolves in a final burst of effort that this will be the last time he’ll forgive him.

Morning comes and he thinks he might mean it this time.


End file.
